Over 6,000 copies were sold in the first fall of 1947. That does not mean that all were of one printing. I have seen nothing that says how many copies were in the 1st printing. But I doubt if the printing was extremely large, and not very big at all by today's standards. But the problem still is that without a price you can't prove that the book was printed any earlier than 1962. The jacket did make a change to the rear flap ad from Little Fur Family to Little Chicken. The Little Chicken ad was on later copies and I believe it was still on early Harper & Row copies. Does your copy have Little Fur Family on the rear jacket flap ad? So how large do you think the first printing was that "they had copies laying around for years"? A book that has sold 50 million copies or more did not sell all of them in a day. And it still comes back to what you and actually prove. Not I know my copy is a First Edition mainly because I own it. Did you buy it in 1947?
